The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC) was a late 19th century charitable capitalism experiment that ended in the 1950s. This blog started looking at the homes that were supposed to be sold to African American home buyers, after decades of mainly renting to white tenants.
Looking at WSIC properties they tend to have a pattern where the properties were sold to a three business partners, Nathaniel J. Taube, Nathan Levin and James B. Evans as the Colonial Investment Co. for $3 million dollars. Those partners sold to African American buyers. There was usually a foreclosure. Then the property wound up in the hands of George Basiliko and or the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA). Then there was the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.
Let’s see what happens with 213 P St NW:
- January 1951 Evans, Levin and Taube sold all of 213 P St NW to Silas Brown.
- January 1951 Brown borrowed $6,000 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- June 1952 Silas and his wife Viola Cecilia Brown sold the other half of 213 P St NW to Charles Williams.
- June 1952 Williams borrowed $994.43 from trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- June 1952 the Browns sold the other half of 213 P St NW to Luella Leach.
- June 1952 Ms. Leach borrowed $1,544.43 from a different set of trustees, Carl D. Coleman and Walter Washington. I wonder if it was THE Walter Washington, former mayor of DC.
Now for some reason that is a mystery to me there is a June 1959 document (#1959024641) selling half of 213 P St to Sophia and George Basiliko by Evans, Taube, new partner Harry A. Badt, their wives and the survivors of Nathan Levin, as part of a large property deal.
- December 1961 Silas Brown legally lost his portion of the property to foreclosure and via an auction it fell into the hands of Evans, Taube and Nathan Levin’s survivors.
- December 1961 Evans, Taube, their wives and the Levin survivors sold half of 213 P to Charles Williams. I’m not sure why this is necessary, because he already owned it.
- December 1961 (same day) Evans, Taube, their wives and the Levin survivors sold the other half of 213 P St NW to Sophia and George Basiliko. Which they did before in 1959.
- June 1964, Charles Williams sold his half to Sophia and George Basiliko.
- Sometime between 1973 and 1979 George Basiliko sold the property to the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA).
- August 1979-ish DC RLA sold the property to Bates Street Associates Inc.
There is so much messed up with this property and the documents that don’t make sense, I will just stop here and not make any conclusions.